Duck Hunt
by Carla Lute
Summary: In the A New Hope novelization Luke asks Obi-wan what a duck is. Two decades later, he goes to find his answer. Follows the Bantam novels, ignores the ones from Del Rey.


**Notes:** This is an old fic that was collecting dust on my computer. At this point, it's a not entirely serious AU that branches off from the Bantam novels...apparently whenever Luke was turning 40.

**Disclaimer:** This story was inspired by characters and situations created by George Lucas et all. No infringement is intended.

* * *

xXx

**Duck Hunt**

Tionne entered Luke's office with quiet steps. She gave Luke a pitying look as she slipped the datacard she had borrowed back into place. She resisted the urge to wish him joy on his birthday. When Kam had congratulated him on his fortieth earlier, Master Skywalker had gone to his office, closed the door, and stayed there. He had not moved since. His head was still in his hands.

Tionne started back out again. She had almost reached the door, when she heard hands slamming against the desk behind.

"Tionne, I've made a decision," Luke declared.

Tionne turned around with silvery eyebrows raised. Luke's head was up, and his broad smile made him look impishly boyish. The change startled her.

"Pardon?" she said politely. "I've decided to do some things," Luke said.

"Things I've wanted to do but never made time for, and I'm going to do them now."

"What kind of things?" Tionne asked.

Luke's smile broadened. "I'm going to find out what a duck is."

"Oh," Tionne said as though that had explained everything and nothing.

Luke stood, stepped around the desk, and headed for the door. As he passed Tionne, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Look after things for a while will you?" he called as he continued down the hall.

Tionne looked about her for anything unusual other than Luke himself. "You forgot your cloak!" she called after him.

"Won't need it," Luke answered. Without turning around, he raised his hand in a wave and disappeared around a corner, leaving a befuddled Tionne standing in his office holding his Jedi robe.

xXx

* * *

xXx

Mara Jade studied her datapad with mild contempt. This Dathomir investment was giving her a headache. The pros and cons of buying stock in the

new quam groves were annoyingly balanced. She needed something to tip the scale one way or the other, so she was diving into the innuendoes of the tax laws.

She had asked not to be disturbed and was therefore slightly irked when the door flashed open.

Her annoyance faded into surprise when she saw

who stepped inside.

"Luke, what are you doing here?" she asked.

Luke slid into the seat on the other side of her desk and smiled at her. "I need to ask you a few things," he said.

Mara frowned. Usually when Luke asked her for help things were serious, but Luke was too perky to be serious. "What do you need?" Her green eyes

narrowed.

"Three things," Luke said. "One, I'd like you to help me figure out what a duck is."

"A what?" Mara asked.

"A duck," Luke said.

"And what exactly is a duck?"

Luke grinned. "If I knew, I wouldn't need your help to find out."

Mara shrugged and relaxed. "What else?"

Luke became only slightly more somber. "Two, I'd like to ask you to leave the Smugglers Alliance. I know you've made it into more, but it's still a criminal organization. You're too good for it."

Mara was floored. Luke continued.

"Third, I would like to ask you to marry me," he finished and waited for her.

Mara felt like she had just been dumped in a centrifuge. Who was this man and what had he done with Luke Skywalker?

Her quick mind assessed the importance and chronology of the three requests, and she felt heat rush into her face. "The third pending the second?" she bit at him. If Skywalker thought she would drop her life to become the consort of the great Jedi Master-

Luke shook his head. "No, they're three separate requests."

Mara sank back again. Her head was spinning. Not because Luke was the type of guy that took her breath away, but because she was quite sure she had

awoken this morning yet she doubted it. Mara tried to collect her thoughts, but they were all running in different directions. How dare he? Why is he doing this? How can he think I'd accept? How can I refuse? Why would I want to accept? What in Vader's shadow am I accepting? Should I be saying something?

Or should I make him sweat? He's sweating already. It's kind of cute. He's too old to be cute, and if this is some desperate attempt on his part to save the galaxy from Mara Jade... This was actually pretty funny. If I don't watch it I'll cry. Oh, blast it!

The wheels were turning, but Mara remained expressionless and quiet. Luke lost his audacity and played with the hem of his shirt. Then he stood. "I'll let you think about it," he said. Then he left.

xXx

* * *

xXx

Talon Karrde sat in his office trying to balance a stack of old Imperial credits into a makeshift sculpture. He stopped when the annuciator chimed. "Come in," he called.

Mara Jade stepped through the door and walked up to his desk. She looked good, real good. Her red-gold hair shimmered, and the shades of green, black, and brown that she wore were very flattering. More than that though Mara herself seemed to sparkle. Her smile was light and a little predatory. Her eyes were still as sharp, but there was an ease around them like the last five years had just lifted.

Karrde smiled. "Mara, come in. What's on your mind?"

Mara planted her palms on his desk and made eye contact. "Karrde you have given me some of the best years of my life, so don't take it the wrong way when

I say this." Mara took a deep breath. "I quit."

Karrde squeezed his eyes shut and opened them wide. Mara looked a little surprised and very pleased with what she had just said. "You can't quit. Mara, you're in charge of the entire Smugglers Alliance."

"Of course I can quit," she said. "I just did." This statement seemed to please her even more.

"Mara, sit down," Karrde said. She did so, and he tried to shake his disbelief. "Why in the galaxy are you quitting?"

"So I can marry Luke Skywalker and find out what a duck is."

Karrde had to hand it too her. She had kept a straight face through the whole sentence. "Okay, Mara, good joke. You really had me going."

Mara shook her head. "It's no joke."

Karrde felt his heart fall into his stomach. "Why?" was all he could manage.

"Please understand," Mara said. "You've been like a father to me. I don't regret having worked with you these last fourteen years, but I..." Mara

stopped. She took on the girlish expression of one who was about to tell a deep, dark secret. "I don't need it anymore."

"Don't need it?"

Mara became the familiar Jade again. She stared at Karrde somberly. "When I came to you I needed power. I needed to be able to shape something, to build it, to better it. To make it big enough to protect me. And now I don't. I've grown up. I don't need the power. I'm big enough to protect myself."

"I've never doubted you were, Mara," Karrde said. "You've always been able to handle yourself."

Mara shook her head. "Before I was surviving. I could make loyalties to people, but my own ideals were beyond me. I was a child, Karrde. But now I'm

living. I don't need to know I'm doing right for someone else. It's enough for me to do right for rightness sake. Do you understand?"

Karrde truly did not. "Mara what can I say to convince you to stay?"

"Nothing. I've decided to leave. I'm still your friend, Talon. I'm still your ally, but I'll be elsewhere from now on."

"When did you decide all this?" Karrde asked, wondering how long Mara would have to wrestle with herself to reach this conclusion.

"Yesterday," she said. "Luke came in and asked me to do three things for him. At first I thought he was crazy and out of line. But I thought about it and decided there was no good reason for me not to."

"No good..." Karrde echoed. "Why Skywalker? I never thought you two were romantically involved."

"We weren't," Mara admitted. "But one, he asked. Two, we're friends. We make a good team. Three, Luke's a nice guy. Nice to the core, and that's rare. Four, he has some of the best fitting pants I've ever seen, and his hair does that little flippy thing..." Mara remembered who she was talking to and started laughing.

Karrde felt like shouting, "I'm a nice guy." but decided Mara would not want to hear that from her father. He sighed. "So what's this business about a

duck?"

"Luke wants to find out what a duck is, and to be honest he's gotten me very curious as well. Have you ever heard of one?"

Karrde shook his head.

Mara took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She stood, and stretched out her hand to Karrde. "Well, wish us luck."

Karrde took her hand automatically. "Good Luck," he said.

Mara turned to leave.

"And when you come back to your senses," Karrde added. "There'll be a place open for you."

Mara mock-saluted and left.

Karrde looked at his credit sculpture. It was about all old Imperial credits were good for. They had no value, worthless. He knocked down the sculpture and shoved the credits into a drawer before he started getting philosophical.

xXx

* * *

xXx

Chief of State Leia Organa Solo scanned the four datapads on her desk with the scrutiny of a hawk-bat. She touched the first, then the fourth. Then she switched the second and third. Leia leaned back with a satisfied sigh. Now she could get to work.

Leia had set up this little home office in the attempt to put travel minutes to better use. She had a hard time judging how successful the attempt was, for any considerable amount of noise drew her away to check on the twins and Anakin. Much like the noise that had just started up.

Leia sighed and cocked an ear to listen. She thought she heard two extra voices. With feigned reluctance, she left the datapads in place on the desk.

The twins were hugging on Luke, and Han and Anakin were approaching. Leia started to do the same then noticed the second visitor. She made a quick scan to see if she had left any important documents lying around the apartment. It did not have to do with who was standing at the door so much as Leia having learned her lesson from past experience. Mon Mothma still was not happy about that Cindel Towani incident.

"Hey, kid. Mara," Han welcomed them. "Let me guess Jade finally broke down and agreed to become a Jedi, and you wanted to gloat."

Mara looked warily at Luke. "Uh, no."

Luke tried to look innocent. He was frightfully good at it. "It's even better, Han."

"Uh, oh, we better sit down."

"Leia!" Luke caught his twin up in a hug.

"Uh, hi," Leia managed. "How are you?"

"I'm great," Luke said with a huge smile.

Leia frowned. "Luke, stop that. You're scaring me."

Anakin was grinning at Mara, and she ruffled his hair. Anakin had been her favorite since he asked her to be his girlfriend back when he was six.

The group squeezed into the conversation circle in the main room.

Leia quickly fought down a panic attack and asked Luke, "So what is this about?"

Luke grinned, "Mara's decided to leave the smugglers guild."

Leia started to congratulate her despite the political headaches she foresaw, but Luke continued.

"So she's going to help me on a mission to find out what a duck is and then we're going to get married."

Leia blinked a few times, then said, "What?"

"She's going to help me on a mission to find out what a duck is and then we're going to get married," Luke repeated.

"That's what I though you said." Leia looked at Mara. "And you knew about all this?"

Mara gave her an "I know it's insane" look and nodded.

"About time," Han said.

"Does this mean, you'll be aunt Mara?" Jaina asked.

Mara slumped back in her seat and covered her face with her hand. "Great Sith, I think it does."

"What did you say you were looking for again?" Anakin asked.

"A duck," Luke said.

"Wait a sec," Anakin said. He jumped off the couch and ran to his room.

The rest of the party exchanged curious glances and followed him.

They stood at the door, while Anakin raided his shelves. "I know it's here somewhere," he mumbled.

"What are you looking for?" the twins asked in unison, then they looked at each other and laughed.

"We have to stop that," Jacen said.

"Here we go," Anakin said. He pulled a sheet about the size of a small datapad from a box on the shelf. He looked at it and smiled. "Duck: a migratory waterfowl with a flat bill and webbed feet native to the temperate zone of the planet Agamar."

"What is that?" Luke asked. Mara looked a little disappointed.

Anakin smiled, "It's a holocard from my Coruscant Galactic Geographic collection."

Mara crossed her arms and leaned back against the door. "So what do we do now?"

Luke shrugged. "Go to Agamar."

**The End...**

xXx

* * *

Well, it's not really the end of the story, just the end of the document. However, if you consider what is written the sum total of the story then the end of the document is the end of the story. You have probably speculated past the last sentence, though, and in that case there is a more extensive unwritten document which means the end of this document is not the end of this story...

"Shutting up, sir."


End file.
